Whole embryo culture (WEC) technique has been developed in 1950's by New and his colleagues, and applied for developmental biology (1). Although development and growth of mammalian embryos are critically dependent on the function of the placenta, WEC technique allows us to culture mouse and rat embryos ex vivo condition during limited periods corresponding to midgestation stages during embryoni...

Conventional culture methods using temperature-responsive culture dishes require 4-5 weeks to prepare layered chondrocyte sheets that can be used in articular cartilage repair and regeneration. This study investigated whether the use of synovial tissue obtained from the same joint as the chondrocyte nutritive supply source could more quickly facilitate the preparation of chondrocyte sheets. Aft...

We used a slide culture technique to detect tubercle bacilli surviving in sputum smears (n=46) after conventional heat fixation and Ziehl-Neelsen staining. In all heat-fixed sputum smears, tubercle bacilli survived after time 0 (n=22), 24 h (n=7), 48 h (n=7), 72 h (n=4), and seven days (n=6). None of the stained sputum smears showed growth on slide cultures. Viable tubercle bacilli remaining in...

Mycoplasma contaminants can be considered important not only for their roles as pathogens but also they may indicate that insufficient care has been taken during vaccine manufacture or quality control. The purpose of this study was to test the poliomyelitis vaccines for Mycoplasma by culture and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods. During 2008 to 2009, a total of 47 lots of oral poliomyelit...

The chick embryo is a valuable tool in the study of early embryonic development. Its transparency, accessibility and ease of manipulation, make it an ideal tool for studying the formation and patterning of brain, neural tube, somite and heart primordia. Applications of chick embryo culture include electroporation of DNA or RNA constructs in order to analyze gene function, grafts of growth facto...